Postal Music

I love the post and everything that is connected with it - the stamps, the postcards, post offices, the postman, the waiting for a letter that you know has been posted, and the surprise of receiving one that you didn't expect. And while many a letter that I have posted (especially the ones with the pretty stamps) has lost its way and I have failed to receive others, the romance of the post continues to hold me in its sway.

Here's a beautiful piece of music created to pass the time while doing the mind-numbing job of stamping letters:

Canceling Stamps at the University of Ghana Post Office

"These postal workers hand-canceling stamps at the post office of the University of Ghana are making drumming sounds, and two are whistling; but there are no drums, and the workers are just passing the time. How, exactly? Koetting (Titon 1992:98-99) wrote as follows:

Twice a day the letters that must be cancelled are laid out in two files, one on either side of a divided table. Two men sit across from one another at the table, and each has a hand cancelling machine (like the price markers you may have seen in supermarkets), an ink pad, and a stack of letters. The work part of the process is simple: a letter is slipped from the stack with the left hand, and the right hand inks the marker and stamps the letter...

This is what you are hearing: the two men seated at the table slap a letter rhythmically several times to bring it from the file to the position on the table where it is to be cancelled. (This act makes a light-sounding thud.) The marker is inked one or more times (the lowest, most resonant sound you hear) and then stamped on the letter (the high-pitched mechanized sound you hear)...The rhythm produced is not a simple one-two-three (bring forward the letter-ink the marker-stamp the letter). Rather, musical sensitivities take over. Several slaps on the letter to bring it down, repeated thuds of the marker in the ink pad and multiple cancellations of single letters are done for rhythmic interest. Such repetition slows down the work, but also makes it much more interesting.

The other sounds you hear have nothing to do with the work itself. A third man has a pair of scissors that he clicks - not cutting anything, but adding to the rhythm. The scissors go "click, click, click, rest," a basic rhythm used in [Ghanian] popular dance music. The fourth worker simply whistles along. He and any of the other three workers who care to join him whistle popular tunes or church music that fits the rhythm."

From: Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's Peoples